


looking like [this]

by Reiaji



Series: best (fake) smile [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste Knows, Akumatized Lila Rossi, F/M, Feat. the chaotic Ladrien power couple this city deserves, Flustered Adrien Agreste, Ladrien in the streets; Adrienette in the sheets, Liela vs. Pettydrien ROUND 2 FIGHT, Or Adrien's single remaining brain cell, Post partial reveal, Post-Episode: s03 Caméléon | Chameleon, Post-Episode: s03 Oni-Chan | Oni-Chan, Protective Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Swearing, Who would win: a self-respecting supervillain on the rise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-08-16 03:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20178895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reiaji/pseuds/Reiaji
Summary: Soon after Adrien's first date with Ladybug makes front page news, Lila seeks revenge on the boy who exposed her with help from an unlikely source: Chat Noir.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of requests for a follow-up to [ best [fake] smile](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18909379/chapters/44887825) featuring some combination of: akuma Lila, post-partial reveal, more Pettydrien, more hijinks, etc., so here's my best attempt. This story is a direct sequel and is best read in sequence. Just in case you don't know what to expect: Lila stars prominently as an antagonist (no ill will, I love her) and you might want to give this series a pass if you dislike fic where other characters refer to her negatively. 
> 
> Title from Looking Like This, by Lyre Le Temps.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It started like this:

Marinette Dupain-Cheng—AKA _motherfucking Ladybug_—was slumped in the empty seat beside him, unfinished sketches and half-full lunch trays scattered between them like cards on a table. She had bruises on her knuckles and glitter on her nails and pink barrettes in her long black hair, nose scrunched in fierce concentration as she pored over the open notebook in front of her. She looked like starlight—like the way a symphony sounded—and every cell in Adrien’s system was about to dissolve into cosmic ooze. 

“So,” she was saying, “I think that accessories are the best to start with, since I’ve got a few samples sewn up already. The Hero's Day fundraiser is in two weeks, and I want my website up for the hype.”

“That’s a great idea, Mari.” Across the table, Alya stabbed her fork into a cherry tomato. “We could be affiliates! That way I can can boost your stuff on the Ladyblog.”

“I need to get on it, it’s just hard to find the time. I’m so tired most nights I’m in bed before ten.”

The excuse slipped out of her easily, as though she'd used it often before. Adrien dropped his gaze into the safe zone of his lap, picking at the holes in the knees of his jeans.

“I think that scarves are easiest to customize,” said Alya. “You could do them in different weights, too. Winter and summer.”

Nino snuck a bite of dessert off Alya's tray, arm draped comfortably over her shoulders. “You should make one for Adrien to take to his next shoot. He can totally drop your name to folks in the industry.”

“Oh yeah!” He startled. “I mean—y-yeah, absolutely, Marinette. I would—I would definitely.”

Marinette pursed her lips, setting down her pen, and Adrien squirmed in the crosshairs of her attention like a beetle trapped by an overturned glass.

“Not if it’s any kind of trouble,” she said. “Y-you look distracted, Adrien. Are you sure you're okay?”

“Yeah, just—just homework, that’s all. I’ve had a few late nights in a row this week. I’m—” He gulped, trying to look anywhere but _her_: the blush on her cheeks, the worry in her eyes, the adorable furrow in the center of her forehead. “I’m coping, Mari. Sorry for zoning out.”

Inside his jacket, Plagg snorted.

Okay, so coping was a generous description for whatever the _hell_ he'd been doing this month. Whatever _this_ was—this sick, wonderful limbo. Coping was a privilege that Adrien couldn't _afford_ when Marinette filled the room like the sun against his back; her fingers begging to fit between his own; her clothes smelling of cinnamon and sweet summer air. 

She was frowning at him now, her eyebrows drawn together, but Nino cut in before she could speak. 

“You’re doing Ladybug’s outfit for the fundraiser, right? That is so _crazy._ I can’t believe you _know_ her.”

“Right?” said Alya, beaming through a mouthful of salad. “It’s great for your resume! And no press is bad press when you're trying to build a business."

Adrien shivered in both relief and disappointment as Marinette’s attention slid away from him.

“Maybe, Alya, but I don’t want to push her. Chat Noir seems more comfortable in front of the press."

“Chat talks the talk,” said Alya matter-of-factly, “but Ladybug is _Ladybug_. There’s two types of people in this city, girl. People who want to be snapped over her knee like an akumatized object, and people who don’t have working eyes.”

Marinette turned the color of a boiled lobster. 

Disentangling his arm from Alya’s shoulders, Nino lifted a single stern finger. “Al, you’re not allowed to say that crap about anyone you follow around the city with a camera. It’s weird.”

“Did I stutter, Lahiffe? Because that wasn't an _opinion_. That was unassailable fact.” Alya’s eyes found him from across the table, and Adrien balked in sudden terror. “Back me up here, Agreste. Tell Nino that the Ladylegs are a French national treasure."

Nino snorted into his soda.

“As Adrien's guardian angel—"

"Aww—"

"As Adrien's guardian angel, I'm telling you nicely to piss right off. He’s literally in love with her, it barely counts."

Then he froze, bug-eyed behind his glasses, straw popping free of puckered lips as Adrien gaped at him in horror. 

Marinette jolted upright, pivoting in her seat. Every drop of blood in Adrien's body rushed to his head with a burning vengeance, flooding his traitor's face with heat.

“Sorry, Nino, what was that?"

Alya’s eyes narrowed in a basilisk stare. "Nothing, Marinette. We were just joking around."

“Joking,” said Nino—the subject of said stare—as he butt-shuffled away at breakneck speed.

Marinette ignored them both entirely. Her eyes were fixed to Adrien’s face, tracking his blush as it crept down his neck—and absolutely _nothing_ about those _eyes_ or that _look_ boded well for his soul staying inside his body.

_She likes someone else_, he reminded himself feebly. _She likes someone else, and that **someone** isn't you._

But he would think about that later, when he could lick his wounds in private. Faced with her soft gaze and galaxy of freckles, his entire body suffused with heat, Adrien’s next words hurtled out of his mouth in his greatest display of _coping_ yet.

“It's not a joke. I've been in love with her for almost a year."

Alya’s jaw dropped, followed by her fork. Marinette’s reaction was almost as stark. Her entire face blanched white as paper, then rapidly turned the color of her alter-ego’s suit. 

“But it’s—it’s just a celebrity crush, right? You don’t really want to _date_ her, do you?"

“Mari,” said Alya, “come on, let’s just—”

“It’s not just a celebrity crush.” The confession spilled out of him like custard from a piping bag, his face flushing darker with each subsequent word. “I know it’s stupid and I _know_ she’d never go for me, but no matter what I do to try and convince myself, I can’t even _think_ of being with anyone else.”

Distantly, he noticed Nino’s thunderstruck expression, but all he could register was Marinette’s _face_—eyes enormous, jaw slack, cheeks beet-red beneath her blush. 

“Oh,” she said, in a hoarse little voice. “I..._oh_.”

She slumped, and Adrien’s heart slumped with her, plummeting from the sky into the bowels of the earth.

“Sorry, Adrien, I didn’t mean to overreact. It just—it really caught me off guard, is all. I wish you’d told me you liked her sooner.”

_I did tell you_, was all he could think, even as an age-old misery threatened to rear its ugly head.

“After all,” she continued, as she straightened in her seat— “After all, I’m one of the few people in Paris who knows Ladybug on a personal basis. I’m in a unique position to set the two of you up.”

The world ground to a screeching halt.

“What?” said Adrien, numb with disbelief. 

“_What?_” said Alya, whirling on Marinette with eyes the size of coffee coasters.

“I said,” Marinette repeated patiently—and the dead-set _certainty_ behind her words set Adrien’s heartbeat careening into hyperdrive— “I said, I’ll set you and Ladybug up on a date.”

“You’re—you’re _serious_?” he choked; at the same time as Alya said, “Girl, have you _lost_ it? Can we go outside and talk about this in private?”

Marinette ignored her, lifting her chin and squaring her shoulders in a boxer’s stance. 

“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life,” she said, and _oh_. She was looking at him in a way she’d never looked at him before, eyes shining and lips parted, pen and lunch and sketchbook forgotten as the strength of her scrutiny flayed him raw. As though she _wanted_ this. As though she _needed_ this. As though she was treading water in the open air, and Adrien was the only oxygen in the room.

_Oh._

She smiled then, secretive and sparkling, and time took on the consistency of molasses as Adrien stared back at her, his mouth flapping uselessly. 

“So, what day should I tell her? And what time?”

“Well I—” _Oh god. Oh **god.** Oh god, shit, no_—“I’m sorry, Mari, I didn’t think—m-maybe Saturday? Saturday for lunch? I have to check with Nathalie, but I'll tell you by the end of today, I promise.”

“Sure,” she answered, low and soft and earnest. “What about the place?”

“Um—” _It’s happening, it’s happening, please, **please** don’t screw it up—_ “Any place. I’ll meet her anywhere. I, uh—I haven’t been to a lot of places around the city on my own, so—”

“Don’t worry about it. I'll tell her to pick. So, you’ll text me as soon as you know when you're free, right?"

Adrien made a strangled noise that he turned into a squeak of assent. Scrambling to his feet, he picked up his tray, nearly tipping his lunch into his lap as he hastened to escape before he could embarrass himself further.

Alya and Nino gawked at him, but Marinette didn't seem to notice. She was too busy beaming, focused on her phone as she swiped through her calendar with nimble fingers. 

"Great! Then that’s settled. I’ll call Ladybug as soon as I hear from you.”

“It's settled,” said Adrien, distantly sure he was dreaming, and fled the cafeteria with his face on fire.

  


* * *

  


Of course, his father decided on Friday night that the weekend would be devoted to a last-minute photoshoot. Of _course_, Adrien spent the entirety of Saturday morning pacing himself dizzy between takes and retakes, swallowing down one long primal scream as it threatened to shatter against the barrier of his teeth.

By lunchtime, his nerves were fried to crisps. Confined to the iron chair of his seat, he read and reread his texts to Marinette, anxiety bursting beneath his skin like bubbles of heat in melted plastic.

Then there came voices, footsteps and hubbub, mounting silence in the hallway outside—and the door to his father's studio slammed open, choir of angels notwithstanding. 

“_Ladybug_," said Nathalie, pen poised over her tablet as the superheroine in question swept into the room. “What’s going on? Is Paris being attacked? Are you in need of a private room to recharge your powers?”

Ladybug's gaze swept over the assembled crew—passing over cameramen, stylists, and assistants—until it found him. Adrien beamed past the powder brush in his face, the makeup artist wielding it agape in disbelief. 

“Hey,” he whispered.

“Hey,” she replied, softening instantly. “Our mutual friend said this was the place."

“I’m ready to head out, just give me a second to get changed.”

She looked him up and down, her eyes warm and shameless, and smiled slowly as he flushed.

"Okay. I'll be waiting right here."

A persistent buzz in the back of his mind reminded him that security was just outside, and that the camera crew—abandoning all pretense of work—had not-so-subtly produced their phones. But in the moment—as he ducked behind a sterile white divider and tugged off his shirt with shaking hands—the only thing he could possibly feel was wild, heart-racing, toe-curling excitement.

By the time he emerged on the studio floor, Nathalie and Ladybug stood toe to toe: the former pale with exasperation, the latter as innocent as strawberry ice.

“Phones away this instant,” Nathalie snapped. “Mademoiselle Ladybug, with all due respect, I must insist that you leave _at once_. This is private property, and several of these designs have yet to be released."

"It’s okay," he blurted. “I invited her here.”

Nathalie flashed him a thousand-yard stare and dragged her fingernails down her forehead.

“The shoot was supposed to end half an hour ago, and we still have the entire day tomorrow.” His heartbeat hammered through the walls of his throat as he grabbed his coat from the back of his chair. “My schedule says I’m having lunch with my father. That’s why Ladybug is here, _right_?”

He shot a desperate look in Ladybug’s direction, and she jerked, wiping the surprise off her face.

“Oh—of course. I came to talk to Monsieur Agreste about, uh—”

“Resume review,” said Adrien. “For our friend Marinette. Marinette Dupain-Cheng? From the contest last year?”

“Right.” Ladybug’s expression flickered. “That’s right, I just—I’m here for Marinette.”

Nathalie's gaze flicked to the tablet in her hands, her lips thinning in an increasingly tight line.

Adrien buttoned his coat to his chest and made a show of looking around the studio, as though Gabriel Agreste might descend from the ceiling like an argyle-patterned killer spider. “Since Père isn't here, and he hasn’t rescheduled, and he hasn’t answered my calls all week—”

He took a shaky step towards Ladybug, praying to every god in existence that his legs were steady and his palms were dry. 

“I _guess_ we have no choice but to go without him.”

“_Adrien_,” said Nathalie, her tone sharp with alarm—but Ladybug’s hand had already closed around his own, her fingers firm and warm and certain. 

She held it only a moment before her arm snaked around his waist, free hand reaching for the yo-yo at her hip. With one elegant throw, the string pulled taut—and then Adrien's sneakers were lifting off the ground, shouts and cries peppering the air in his wake as they rocketed upwards towards the rafters of the warehouse.

Nathalie's stunned expression disappeared in his peripheral vision as Ladybug re-oriented herself in midair, swinging them out through an open skylight and into the brilliant, sunlit air.

  


* * *

  


As soon as they cleared the overhang of the warehouse, Ladybug veered across the busy street below, leaping from rooftop to wind-lashed rooftop until they finally alighted in the Quartier Asiatique. 

“Sorry about that,” said Adrien breathlessly, as his feet touched the ground in a secluded alley. “I was planning to sneak out, but then the photoshoot happened, so I kind of had to make up an excuse last minute.”

Ladybug landed beside him, retracting her yo-yo, and shot him a look that was as curious as it was confused. 

“You couldn’t just tell them you were going on a date?”

Adrien bit back an incredulous laugh. “What? No. _God,_ no. Père would probably have me waterboarded. It used to really piss me off, but at least he's consistent with standing me up."

Ladybug snorted, her amusement vanishing.

“I'm sorry to hear that. He sounds like a class act.”

Adrien shrugged over the flutter in his gut. Anticipation swelled inside him like the sea at high tide, swiftly overtaking the excitement of his escape. His hands were icy, and he shoved them into his pockets, praying that he looked more composed than he felt.

“Anyway,” Ladybug continued, twisting her fingers nervously, “you’re probably wondering why I brought you here. It’s not especially romantic, but—”

She turned her attention to a canvas bag that dangled discreetly from her elbow. Adrien watched curiously as she rummaged through it, extracting a monstrosity of cheap black plastic. 

“There’s a convention happening down the street,” she explained. “Ladybug and Chat Noir are super popular cosplays, so this is the only place in Paris I can blend in while I’m wearing my suit. I, um—I brought a matching mask for you. So that nobody sees you and recognizes your face.”

Adrien accepted the mask without question, biting his lip to stop himself from laughing.

The black finish and lopsided ears were a dollar-store knock-off of his own superhero outfit, held on by elastic instead of magical adhesive. The shape was wrong, and the plastic was scratchy, and the eyes were mere holes instead of glamored lenses; but he slipped it onto his face and grinned, bowing at the waist with an exaggerated flourish. 

Ladybug laughed, the sound almost startled, and shook her head as though to clear it. 

“What do you think? Do I make the cut?"

“It’ll do for now,” she answered softly. “Though I can’t say I relish hiding that face.”

Halfway through straightening, Adrien’s breath hitched. 

Did she _mean_ it? Did she _mean_ that searching look; that sly quirk at the corner of her mouth; that careless, bright-eyed, _eager_ stare? The way she was looking at him, at _Chat_, like he was the only star in a skyful of satellites?

Whatever nervous meltdown was imminent, it evaporated in the face of Ladybug's smile. _Marinette’s_ smile, wide and nervous and delighted, twisting between his ribs like a ribboned key.

“Is all that okay, then? I thought we could get something to eat and then walk around for a bit. We could look at the shops, or people-watch at the convention center, or—or whatever you want.”

"That sounds perfect,” he said, swallowing a white-hot mouthful of excitement. “But we should stay out of the street if we want to dodge my bodyguard. He's probably combing the roads as we speak."

"Don’t worry about that. I went to the Restaurant Lasserre this morning and booked a table. So if he’s looking for you anywhere, he’s looking for you there. Along with all your raving fanboys.”

“Wait, seriously?” Startled into some semblance of composure, Adrien whirled to face her. “The Lasserre is supposed to be expensive, right? You paid for a reservation without planning to show up?”

"Well, it’s not like it’s going to waste. Your friends Nino and Alya are going to show up in our place.” Ladybug paused, her confidence faltering as she scanned his expression. “I just....I thought it’d be worth it, at least for the first date. Nobody tailing us. Just you and me.”

It was the kind of understated cleverness he’d come to expect from Marinette, but his chest fluttered nonetheless. He swallowed again, throat bone-dry, and adjusted the mask over the bridge of his nose.

“That’s smart,” he croaked. “That’s really, really smart.”

Ladybug shook her head, and her gaze slid away from his. 

“I’ve had a long time to think about how I wanted to do this,” she said, her voice almost lost to the din of passing traffic. “A long time to _freak out_ about everything that could go wrong. Planning it all out—it helps me, a little bit. I guess you could say it's what I'm good at.”

Adrien’s stomach cartwheeled in place. He opened his mouth, but speech had deserted him, along with the ability to catch his breath. He was reduced to red cheeks and graceless, tangled limbs, her words ricochetting around the inside of his skull like a ping-pong ball in a vending machine. 

A long time. 

She’d had _a long time._

At some point in their friendship—their sometimes affectionate, sometimes awkward, sometimes downright confusing acquaintance— _Marinette Dupain-Cheng_ had sat herself down and thought about _taking him on a fucking date_.

Cool. _Cool._ Coolcoolcoolcool_cool_.

“Oh! I almost forgot. I have a costume change, too.” As though to stop herself from looking at him, Ladybug turned aside and dug through her bag of tricks. “Well, kind of. I can’t—well, I _can_, but taking off the suit is a whole _thing_, and—oh god. I'm just—I'm just gonna shut up.” Cheeks luminous, she pulled out a pink windbreaker, which she layered over her suit and zipped to her chin. Then she reached for the back of her head, fiddling with the ribbons that kept her pigtails in place. Seconds later, they vanished in her hand, and night-black locks spilled across her shoulders like ink. 

“What do you think?” she said, shaking her hair out and combing it behind her ears. “Do I look different enough to usual?”

Adrien’s capacity for coherent thought dribbled out of his ears like snot.

“Uh—” He bit his tongue as it thickened in his mouth, scrounging for a scrap of Chat’s self-assurance. “You look...y-you look, um…”

God _damn_ it. Why was this so _difficult_? Speaking full sentences was definitely a skill he remembered possessing in the distant past. 

“You look gorgeous,” he squeaked. “I mean. Not that that’s. Different. To usual.”

Ladybug blinked at the telltale flush that swamped his cheeks and neck and chest—and then, like a cardsharp’s sleight of hand, her expression shifted to a shit-eating grin. 

“Thanks, hot stuff. Maybe if I hit the ground running, I’ll catch up to you in about a hundred years.”

Still grinning, she hoisted her bag over her shoulder and extended her hand to take his own. “So, now that that’s finished, what do you feel like eating? It might not be the same as what you’re used to, but there’s a really good dim sum parlor around the corner from here.”

“I’d love to,” he replied, mourning his missed chance to—stare at her like a serial killer? Forget how to speak French? Lay on the ground in a quivering heap until flood or fire put him out of his misery? “I’m, um—kind of starving. I’ll pay for everything. It's the least I can do.”

“If that’s okay,” she said, her thumb brushing his knuckles in a way that was wholly, _devastatingly_ distracting. “Next time we do this, you can pick the place.”

_Next time._

_Next time?_

_**Next time?**_

“Who knows,” she said, and smirked that smirk of hers; quick and sweet as a knife in the night— “Maybe I should make a point of walking in on your private business.”

And then her fingers slid between his own, and for the first time in a life of white walls and slammed doors, the entire world opened up at his feet.

  


* * *

  


To Adrien's delight, Ladybug’s diversion worked to its intended purpose. 

There was precisely _zero_ interference until the moment they arrived at the Agreste mansion, where any hopes of a kiss goodnight were dashed by the paparazzi swarming the gates. 

“See you real soon,” said Ladybug softly, as they touched down together in the dew-slick grass. He squeezed his gratitude into the palm of her hand, slipping into the embrace of his father’s security as she rappelled to the rooftop and swung off beneath the stars. 

By the time he started his homework, the news had broken. Block-letter headlines flooded his dashboard, lighting up his mentions like the river on Bastille Day. No one knew exactly what Adrien had been up to in the scant few hours he'd been hidden from the public eye; but that did nothing to stem the tide of rumor, ranging from the harmless to the hateful to the crass.

In other words: Adrien was in deep shit. 

Neck-deep and _drowning_, was the better description. It seemed that Gabriel, despite ditching on lunch, had plenty of time to burst his eardrums with every dripping detail of his disgrace. The bone-snapping weight of his father's disappointment could very nearly break his back, but for the first time in living memory, Adrien wasn’t _sorry._

Worth it, to see his name dragged down into the dirt, tangled up with _hers_ like two halves of a Gordian knot.

Worth it, for the few pictures the cameras had captured: Ladybug descending to the manicured grass with her arm wrapped snugly around his waist, her cheeks bright with cold and a fierce, giddy blush; while Adrien laughed the open-mouthed laugh he’d been pinched out of doing in public spaces; his hair askew and his expression _unmistakably_ smitten. 

_Worth it. Worth it. Worth it._

The pictures were still in the back of his mind when he took to the rooftops just before midnight, the wild power of his transformation chasing his blood like liquid lightning. His muscles burned as he propelled himself across the city, whooping as he went, fatigue sloughing off him like flakes of dead skin.

The city was a playground, unravelling at his feet, and every second alone beneath the sky and the stars chipped away at the gallstone lodged in his gut. By the time he touched down on a jutting rooftop, he was almost back to feeling like himself. 

“Nice night to sulk, isn’t it, Chat Noir?”

Chat’s eyes snapped down to the alley beneath him.

Propped against the cobblestone wall below was a deceptively casual Lila Rossi, bundled in layers to stave off the chilled air. Her arms were crossed over a crisply pressed blouse, her waist-length hair bound up in a knit cap. She looked much the same as when Chat usually saw her: slumped in her seat, smiling like a mannequin, presumably wishing she could wring Adrien’s neck like a plucked chicken she was sick of being polite to. 

“Can I help you?” he asked, not bothering to hide his annoyance. 

“I think you can, actually.” Lila produced her phone and held it up to him, its screen glaringly bright amidst the shadows of the streetlights. “Do these pictures look familiar to you?”

Chat squinted, his night vision sharpening, and was both surprised and disturbed to see his own unmasked face flash across the screen.

“Looks like your partner has been keeping herself busy in her off hours, hm?”

“So?” snapped Chat, bristling at her dismissive tone. “It’s none of your business what Ladybug does or who she spends her time with.”

“Relax, kitty, I’m on your side here.”

“Don’t _call_ me that.”

“Fine. Chat.” Lila spread her palms in an apologetic gesture, but Chat was on guard now, his hackles raised. He rose to his feet, boots scraping loudly, and extended his baton as he prepared to jump.

“Chat Noir, wait. I’m sorry. Just listen to me for a minute, okay?” Lila turned off the screen of her phone and tucked it away in the pocket of her skirt. “I know you don’t think highly of me, but we both want the same thing.”

“Sure we do, unicorn. Have a nice life.”

"Everyone knows you've been in love with Ladybug ever since the two of you met. You can’t be happy with her shunting her _partner_ to bum around town with some rich little brat."

Halfway through bracing his legs to leap, Chat froze. 

“I—_what?_”

“His name is Adrien Agreste.” Lila’s eyes narrowed maliciously, even as her voice took on a veneer of earnestness. “This thing he’s doing with Ladybug? He did it with _me_ first. Led me on for _months_, plus a bunch of other girls. He got Kagami _akumatized_. That’s why she was chasing me.”

Chat opened and closed his mouth, stunned into momentary speechlessness.

“Adrien?” he managed finally. "You mean like...the guy on all the billboards? The guy from the _fragrance_ ad?”

“Remember a few weeks back, when he took me to Fashion Week? It was all just a setup to publicly humiliate me.” Her voice caught perfectly, laced with false hurt. “I’m warning you, Chat, he’ll do the same to your partner. He’s a liar and a player, I’ll tell you that for free."

_Oh my god, it’s finally happening._The one time he outperformed his lady at _anything_, and it was pissing off the resident sociopath until he was _numero uno_ on her list of public enemies. 

“Right,” he said aloud. “Because you and Ladybug are _such_ close friends.”

“Whatever, Chat. Say whatever you want. But I’m the only one who knows what Adrien is like beneath that vapid nice-guy mask he wears.” Lila rolled her shoulders in a deceptively casual shrug. “I thought you might care enough about Ladybug being taken _advantage_ of to at least hear me out. But I guess those declarations of undying love were just talk.”

She tucked her hands into the pockets of her coat and clicked towards the mouth of the alley, lamplight gleaming on her auburn hair as she tossed a glance at him over her shoulder. 

“What do you have to lose by believing me? If I’m telling the truth, then Ladybug will be a laughingstock by the time the month is out. If I’m lying, and Adrien likes her for real—well, I guess you can kiss goodbye to ever getting with the girl of your dreams.”

A thin smile crossed her lips. “Think about it, Chat. But not for too long, okay? If you need someone to talk to, you know where I live.”

She strolled away from him, her footsteps light in the empty alleyway, and Chat was left alone in astonished silence.

  


* * *

  


“We’re killing her,” Plagg announced, the second Adrien released his transformation and crawled into bed. 

“Plagg, no.”

“Fine. We’re telling Marinette so that _she_ can kill her. The blood won’t even show up against the color of her suit.”

"No."

“Adrien, why _not_? She's a turd-flinging harpy. She’s not just gonna _stop_ if you bury your head in the sand.”

His kwami must have been genuinely worked up, because he didn’t even leave to look for a snack—just clung to Adrien's hair and yowled directly into his ear. Sighing, he flipped over onto his back and tugged the covers up to his chest.

“I _know_, Plagg, but what difference does it make? People lie about me all the time. They pretend to know me, or they pretend to _be_ me, or they try and get close to me by buttering up my friends. It's only going to get worse now that Ladybug’s been seen with me.”

Plagg’s eyes narrowed, but he was mercifully silent. Adrien massaged his temples, staring at the ceiling, and softened his voice before speaking again. 

"I get that you're worried, but it’s not that big of a deal. There's nothing Lila can do to hurt me that hasn't been done a hundred times before.” 

"She can do _enough_," said Plagg, his tail lashing. "She’s in cahoots with your _dad_, remember? It’s not like he needs another excuse to tie you to your bed and put your tears in men’s cologne.”

Adrien's eyes slammed shut in frustration, and he rolled onto his side, hiding his face in his sheets.

He’d been so _happy_. Standing next to Ladybug, her arm around his shoulders, his blood full of thunder and burning adoration, he’d felt as though nothing and no one could touch him. Like the weight of the entire _world_ couldn’t stop them from rising, bound by each other’s gravity like binary stars in orbit. But now that he was alone—now that he was _home_—he couldn’t fend off the lurking fear that Ladybug’s interest was a glorious fluke. 

After all, it had only been a slim few weeks since Marinette could barely look him in the face. Something between them had shifted, certainly—had made her gaze bold, her touch unassuming, her smile wide and wicked and _wanting_—but who could say why, or how, or how _long_? 

Plagg clambered up the slope of his shoulder and dropped to the bed, inserting himself in front of him.

"I thought you were done being a doormat, kid. Where's this coming from all of a sudden? You miss the weekly meetup for Invertebrates Anonymous, or what?”

"It’s not Lila I’m afraid of, Plagg."

"Then what?"

“It's me," Adrien blurted. “It’s everything to _do_ with me. The scrutiny, and the lies, and the invasion of privacy. It’s so much hassle just to be with me in public.” His chest pulled taut like the skin of a drum, lining each of his breaths in lead. “_I_ can put up with it, but what if Ladybug can’t? What if it's too hard on her, or—or what if I’m not _worth_ it?”

"_Seriously_, kitten? Are you for real? Marinette Dupain-Cheng is batshit about you.”

“You don't know that," he mumbled into his considerable pile of pillows. "Just because we went out doesn’t mean we’re _together_. She probably has options lined up into next week."

Plagg rolled his eyes, but shuffled a little closer, deigning to offer the comfort of his presence. Adrien reached out to scratch him behind the ears, absentmindedly searching for the spots that made him purr.

"I mean, I don't _get_ that lucky, you know? I totally expected something like Lila to crawl out of the cracks and bite me. I could deal with all that, if I just knew it was for _real_. She's so amazing, and I'm so _bad_ at this, and that other boy she likes is _so, so stupid._"

Plagg stared at him for a long minute, then burst into snickers against the curve of his cheek. 

“I guess you better hope he stays stupid, then."

"Plagg," he said sternly, "my love life isn't a joke."

"You're not going to _have_ a love life much longer if you keep wooing women like a constipated octopus."

Adrien stopped scratching and propped himself upright, fixing his kwami with an affronted glare. “Don’t you have anything useful to say? Because that was unhelpful, even for you.”

When Plagg didn’t respond, he groaned aloud, hauling himself out of bed and groping for his nightstand. A few seconds of rummaging turned up the last of his hoard of cheese, which he broke between his fingers and sprinkled on the sheets. 

Plagg inched towards it, nose and tail twitching, but stopped just shy of taking the treat.

“If you're asking me for my advice, kitten, I've already told you what I think you should do."

"Right," said Adrien, scrunching up his face. "You think I should start drama, ignoring that it's _Lila_, ignoring that my father is furious as it is; because _that_ will somehow convince Marinette I'm not the world's worst potential boyfriend."

“Oh, please. Don't put this on Marinette. Even if she wasn't in love with your dumb ass, she wouldn't want to see you unhappy for reasons you can do something about." 

Adrien wrapped up the rest of the cheese and stowed it back in its designated drawer.

"And what," he said, "are you proposing I _do_ about it?”

“I mean, I _think_ you're smarter than Lila. I _think_ you can beg or borrow the brain cells to generate some kind of half-baked plan. But jeez, Adrien, what would I know? I'm only fourteen billion years old."

He devoured Adrien's offering with gusto, then licked his paws clean with a tiny tongue. 

"Too bad you don't know a literal superhero who escapes his own house on a daily basis. Too bad you don't know _absolutely anyone_ who crazy-fights akuma in his ten-minute pee break. A guy like _that_ might know a few things about breaking the rules without getting caught. A guy like that could do what _you_ can't."

And with that, he had nothing further to say. Swallowing the last few crumbs of cheese, Plagg skittered forward and curled against his chest. Moments later, his snores filled the room, leaving Adrien to lay awake in silence.

  


* * *

  


On Sunday night, after Adrien had eaten a lukewarm dinner and locked himself in to finish his homework, Chat Noir climbed through his bedroom window and leapt his way across the rooftops of Paris.

It didn't take long for him to arrive at his destination. Lila was seated in a lounge chair on her balcony, a book in one hand and a soda in the other. Despite the late hour, she was still fully dressed, her hair neatly combed and tucked behind her ears. 

It reminded him of visiting Marinette on the rare nights he had solo patrol, when he’d eat his fill of stale eclairs while she sewed or sketched or whined about her homework. The irony wasn't lost on him as he vaulted over the railing, landing lightly beside a heap of empty flowerpots. 

Lila barely bothered to look up. 

"Love hurts, doesn’t it?” she greeted him sweetly. “All this fighting for a seat at the table, and all that’s on offer is some other boy’s leftovers.”

“One,” said Chat, “don’t insult my lady in front of me. You _will_ take a swim, and I _will_ make it look like you slipped on the bridge.” He seated himself on the cast-iron railing, retracting his baton and crossing his ankles. “Two, don’t pretend you’re not in the same boat. _You_ were trying to get with Adrien Agreste before whatever went down between you at the gala.”

Lila’s face darkened, and she snapped her book shut. 

“It’s late,” she said curtly. “I have school first thing tomorrow. If you’re not here to talk, then get off my balcony before I scream.” 

“Relax, Lila. I’m here to propose a truce.”

Lila’s eyebrows lifted towards her hairline. In that moment, she looked as honest as he’d ever seen her: eyes calculating, head held high, utterly stripped of the fawning mannerisms she’d weaponized in her time at Collège Françoise Dupont.

“You wanted to talk about Adrien, right? So, let’s talk about him.” Chat fixed her with a meaningful stare. “You want revenge against the boy who embarrassed you, and I want him as far away from Ladybug as possible. We do have something in common after all."

Visibly dubious, Lila snorted. 

“How selfless of you. Honestly, Chat, I didn’t think you had it in you.” 

“Look, I’m not mad that she likes somebody else. I’m _worried_ about her. I mean, he’s obviously manipulating her, right?” Chat settled onto the palms of his hands, glancing over his shoulder at the darkened street below. “She’s only met Adrien a couple of times. Nobody falls in love that fast, especially with a girl they don’t even know.”

Lila frowned as she got to her feet, setting her book on her abandoned seat. 

“So,” she said slowly, “you’re saying you’re on my side? You think that Adrien deserves to go down?”

“What I’m _saying_ is: whatever plan you have to take him out, I’m in. Whatever _dirt_ you have on him, I’m in. Whatever you can do to help me scare him away from Ladybug. I won’t come second to uptown trash.”

He grinned, vicious, flashing white teeth—and when he spoke, his voice was perfectly steady. 

“You feel like fucking with Adrien Agreste? Then fine. Let’s _fuck_ with Adrien Agreste.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seconds passed as Lila studied him. Then her posture shifted, relaxing by inches, and her face smoothed out into a semblance of friendliness. When she spoke, her voice was deceptively soft. 

"Listen, Chat. I’m sorry I was rude. It’s just a little hard to let go of old grudges.” She made her way to the balcony railing, leaning against it with her chin in both hands. “This isn’t something I like to admit, but the reason I disliked Ladybug in the first place was because I blamed her for ruining my chances with Adrien. It’d be petty to cling to that, knowing what I know now. He really isn’t worth my peace of mind.”

She averted her eyes, a pretty picture of embarrassment. “Let’s start over, okay? I can’t take back my mistakes, but at least this way he won’t hurt anyone else.”

_God_, she was good. As real as a photograph. If she hadn’t kissed him as Chameleon; if she hadn’t bullied Marinette; if she hadn’t gone so far as to try and get her _killed_—

“Don't worry about it," he yawned. “I might not believe you about the day of the week, but I _do_ believe you about Adrien Agreste. It’s a cat thing, you know? We’ve got asshole radar.”

Lila opened her mouth—perhaps to point out that Chat was a boy in a cat-themed costume, not an actual, technical cat—but seemed to think better of it.

“Good,” she said instead. “Because someone should deal with him before he gets his claws in any deeper. I’m not in your place, but if I _were_, I think I’d want to pay him a visit.”

“Whoa," he said sharply. "Are you serious, Lila? I’m not about physically hurting civilians. At all.”

“I know, Chat. And I know how it sounds. But Adrien is famous, and his dad is rich. No matter what he does, no matter _who_ he does it to, he’ll never face consequences for his actions.” Her voice dropped to a persuasive hum. “The longer you leave him to his own devices, the more damage he’s going to do.”

Chat sat up, stretching out the kink in his shoulders, before shifting on the balcony railing to face her.

“I take it you have proof, then?”

She blinked. “Proof?”

“Of Adrien doing something bad enough to justify a Cataclysm to the face, besides pissing you off by putting you in the friend zone.”

Lila pinched her nose in frustration. 

“It's not as easy as you think,” she said flatly. “Adrien has the world convinced that he’s perfect. I could accuse him of _murder_, and a dozen of his stooges would crawl out of the cracks to say he was scheduled to meet the Prime Minister, or receive a medal of honor, or nurse a starving kitten back to health, or whatever.”

“So, let’s get this straight. You _don’t_ have proof.” Chat raised his eyebrows, unimpressed. “Not so much as a photo where he has spinach between his teeth.”

Lila brushed back a long strand of hair and gnawed her lower lip absentmindedly. Turning away from her, he tipped back his head, studiously staring at the stars overhead. 

"It doesn’t matter,” she said eventually. "Ladybug trusts you, Chat Noir. _Paris_ trusts you. You can do whatever the hell you want, and they’ll fall over themselves to find reasons to defend you.”

“Listen, Lila. Even if I _could_ beat him up—and I’m not saying I _would_, just that I _could_, I could totally take Adrien with my hands behind my back—”

She snorted. 

“—the only thing it would accomplish is giving him something to use. If he spins it the right way, I could wind up losing my miraculous. I could lose my lady's trust for good.”

“But Chat—”

“Nope," he said cheerfully. "We're doing this the smart way, or we're not doing it at all. And what I mean by that is: while _you_ were preoccupied hate-stalking Twitter and following me around on my solo patrol, _I_ got some dirt that will bury him for good." 

Even without taking his eyes off the stars, his heightened senses caught the hitch in her breath.

“What do you mean by that?”

Chat shrugged, his face an open book.

"Ladybug and I met up a couple hours ago, before I came here," he lied. "We were supposed to stop by the police station so she could give a statement about that akuma attack last week. The cops said she couldn't have a weapon in the station, so she left her yo-yo with me outside."

Lila was silent, an unspoken permission to continue. 

"Anyway, I was looking at stuff on her phone, and—"

"You went through Ladybug's phone? Why?”

"Uh, so that I could take a million pictures of my face and make a collage for her home screen? Obviously." 

“Ugh, Chat. Forget I asked.”

“_Anyway,_ I found a recording from last night. I thought it was a voicemail from one of our part-time teammates, so I listened to it." Chat glanced off to the side, as though the memory was vaguely discomfiting. "Except that it wasn't. It was from Adrien."

She frowned. “Is he in trouble? Was it something incriminating?”

"Ha! I wish. My lady and I, we’re one step below the law. Even Adrien isn’t stupid enough to confess his crimes to an active hero." Chat dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "It was, uh. There’s no good way to put it, so I’m just going to come out and say it, okay? It was _private_."

Lila stared at him in flabbergasted silence. Her cheeks, incredibly, had turned a dusky shade of red.

Wow. Disturbing. 

"I only listened to the first few minutes, because firstly: gross. And secondly, who _does_ that after going on one date? Like, wow. He must be _desperate._" Chat rolled his eyes. "But I did remember what you said, and I sent myself a copy of it, just in case."

He glanced over at Lila, trying to gauge her discomfort. But all signs of embarrassment had fled her face, to be replaced by a look of concentrated calculation.

_Super_ disturbing. 

“So," he continued, "you wanna give Adrien a taste of his own medicine? You wanna humiliate him so badly he drops out of the public eye and never shows his face near Ladybug again? There you go. Knockout move."

Lila whirled away from him and clapped her hand over her mouth, pacing across the balcony as she thought.

"Okay. _Okay._ This is too good to waste. I have to be smart about how I use this." She raised her head, eyes agleam. "You’ve heard about the Hero's Day fundraiser this Friday, right?"

"Yeah," said Chat slowly. "I'm not going, but Ladybug is going to be there."

"Adrien's dad is making him go. And where there’s pictures, there’s bound to be press." Lila snapped her fingers. "There's got to be some way we can leak it then, while he's out in public in front of the girl he likes and a million reporters looking for blood."

Forcibly quelling the wave of disgust that overtook him like a putrid smell, Chat crossed his legs and propped his chin up in his hand. "I’ve got an idea. You’re in the same class as him, right?”

"Um, yeah? What about it?"

"Can you get into his locker and steal his phone from his bag? The fundraiser is right after school lets out, so he'll probably head directly there. Meet me there with the phone, and we'll send it to all his contacts."

He waited several painstaking seconds as the full implication of his statement set in, and Lila's eyes went wide as saucers.

"Oh my god," she said, in almost reverent tones. "_Oh my god_. That would be—holy _shit._" She bit her fist, as though to suppress a snicker. "He's got, like, everyone in our class on there. All the people on his fencing team. _Work_ contacts. Like, A-list designers and agents and stuff. _Holy shit._"

"Yeah," he replied coolly. "He’ll never be able to work in Paris again. Justice served.”

Lila laughed, short and cruel, and set her unfinished soda on the table. “Yes, justice served, indeed."

Chat donned an uncomfortable smile and swung his legs over to the other side of the railing, feet dangling over the empty street below. "Then that's settled. The fundraiser is happening at Parc Floral. Meet me outside the west entrance at three thirty sharp.”

"Wait," said Lila, a frown crossing her face. "Why can't you just send me the recording now?"

"There's still a whole school week until Friday. That's five whole days I'd have to rely on your discretion, and honestly, I still don't know if I trust you." Chat met her gaze nonchalantly, ignoring the way her mouth twisted. "I’m staking my friendship with Ladybug on this plan. I can’t afford to leave loose ends.”

Lila clearly wanted to protest; but after a moment's thought, she seemed to decide against it, shifting onto her heels with a pointedly casual shrug. 

"Fine, Chat. I guess that's fair. I suppose I'll see you on Friday, then."

"Friday," said Chat. "Don’t stay up too late."

Without a moment's delay, he extended his baton and vaulted over to the opposite side of the street, grounding himself with gulps of cold air as he put the Rossi residence behind him.

  


* * *

  


“So, I have _these_—” Marinette upended her bag to reveal a heap of chunky-knit scarves— “and I have a beanie design that will be done by tomorrow if I can get Maman to help with the sewing, and I have, erm—some purses and wallets and things like that. Take your pick.”

“Wow, Mari. I thought you said you were sticking to scarves."

“I did say that,” she muttered. “But that was two days and seven liters of coffee ago.”

Her eyes tracked him as he sifted through the pile, selecting a black scarf trimmed in delicate red patterns. The steps in front of Collège Françoise Dupont were mostly abandoned at this time of day, and talk came easily in the after-school lull. Even so, his nerves were in full swing, and no amount of normalcy could calm the residual fluttering in his chest. 

“The fundraiser is this week. When did you even get the time to make these?” He gestured at her bloodshot eyes and jerky, caffeine-empowered movements. “Are you, like...are you _okay?_”

“I’m good!” she squeaked. “I’m super, super good, actually.” She darted a glance at him, nervous and knowing, only to look away quickly as her face turned pink. “I had a really great weekend. What about you?”

Adrien laughed, a wheeze of relief, and absentmindedly scooped the scarf into his lap. Her eyes fell to his hands as he stroked the soft wool, preparing to cover himself in her colors. 

“You know how my weekend went, Marinette.” 

“I-I do?”

“It’s all over the tabloids, despite our best efforts." He smiled at her, fond, as her tense posture relaxed. “Thank you, by the way. It was a better first date than I ever could have imagined.”

Marinette's shoulders loosened incrementally, and she turned her attention back to the array of hand-stitched accessories spread across the steps.

“All that matters is that you had a good time. Though I did want to ask how you were doing, Adrien.”

“Me?” He paused in genuine confusion. “I’m great, Mari. Why do you ask?”

Marinette chewed the corners of her mouth, fists clenched in the lap of her dress. Her gaze was thoughtful as it searched his face, and he colored beneath it, trying not to squirm. 

“Just—you know. It’s a lot of pressure, isn’t it? Nobody knows who Ladybug is or who she turns into when she goes home at night, but you don’t have that luxury.” She plucked the scarf from his unresisting grip. “It can’t be easy to put up with that kind of scrutiny.”

All thoughts of _normalcy_ shattered from Adrien’s grasp as she leaned into his personal space, her slim, clever fingers winding the scarf around his neck.

“Oh,” he said, over the clamor in his ears. “U-um. Yeah, I guess it gets annoying. But it’s fine, honestly, I'm so used to it I barely notice.”

“So what, that somehow makes it okay? It’s _not_. You’re not in a goddamn _zoo_.”

God, she almost sounded _possessive_. Adrien’s breath stuttered despite his best efforts, only to return in a humiliating wheeze. 

“I can handle the press. I’ve been doing it my whole life. The media hype will die down eventually." It was a harsh truth, but the truth nonetheless. “Trust me, Marinette, I've thought this through, and all I want is for being with me to be easy."

Marinette didn’t respond, but she didn’t pull away, either. Her face was simultaneously too close and too far away; warm blue eyes and black, black hair; icing-sugar freckles on soft golden skin. 

“Do you—” He started, swallowing moisture into his mouth. “Do you remember that time you helped me sneak out so I could go to the cinema and see my mother’s film?”

“Um, yeah.” Marinette snorted, pointedly looking anywhere but his face as she wound the scarf in cosy loops. “I was in my _pajamas_ being chased by _paparazzi_, Adrien. That’s kind of a hard experience to forget.” 

“It’s often like that when I’m out on my own. A little better when my bodyguard is with me, but even then, it's hard to predict.” He sat as still as he possibly could, trying not to think about her fingers at his throat—about her arm around his waist, firm and impossibly strong, as the streets of Paris turned to ribbons at their feet. “It was probably the worst right after my mother left. We used to get reporters camping out around our house, trying to catch me or my father coming out. One actually climbed over the wall one time and got into my room while I wasn’t there.”

“God, Adrien, I'm so sorry."

“It’s nothing for _you_ to be sorry about,” he replied, so quickly that her head snapped up in surprise. “It’s just the way things are. Always have been, with me.”

Marinette was quiet, chewing her lower lip. Her hands were a warm weight on Adrien’s shoulders; and he tried to think of _anything_ but the spaces between her fingers—the hollow beside her wrist where he _knew_ his thumb fit perfectly. 

“You knew it would be that way with Ladybug, and you still agreed to go on that date? I’m just saying, you could probably get anyone you wanted.” 

Adrien boggled, narrowly clamping back a noise of indignation. 

“I don’t _want_ anyone else.” _I’ve **never** wanted anyone else._ “And I don’t care what anyone thinks. This is probably the first time in my life that people are staring at me for something worthwhile.”

“You think so?” she murmured, her grip turning slack.

“I_ know_ so. I want the whole world to know how I feel about her. ” Adrien raised his hands to his throat and tugged her hands away in his own. Marinette started as he did it, as though she hadn’t realized how long she’d been touching him, her face turning crimson as he lowered them to her chest. “If there’s even the chance she feels the same way about me—or _could_ feel the same way about me, someday—then I’m all in."

Marinette simply sat there, cheeks and neck flushed, staring at the junction of their neatly joined hands as though flowers might sprout from between their fingers. A moment later, she extracted herself, her reluctance so palpable he could almost trace the shape of it. 

“Good, Adrien. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“I’m better than okay, Marinette.” Adrien raised a hand to the scarf at his neck. “So, what do I owe you? Don’t be shy about charging me just because we’re friends.”

"No, I insist. I have to pay you back for promoting me somehow.” Marinette raised her eyebrows and touched her own neck, tapping the sweet spot just below her jawline. “Besides, who knows? If Ladybug likes you as much as you like her, you might be in need of some cover-up soon.”

All of Adrien’s self-satisfied knowledge—his private jokes, his tiny teases, his prying at the edges of the shining secret between them—turned to hot air with a pitiful squeak. 

Red-faced and reeling, he floundered for a response as Marinette swept up the remainder of her samples. 

“That would be some headline, wouldn’t it?" she said sweetly. "Take it easy, Adrien. I'll see you in class tomorrow."

“Bye,” he said faintly. “I’ll see you in class.”

She darted down the steps, waving as she went, and left him alone with her swiftly departing back.

  


* * *

  


On Friday, Adrien left school early. 

As soon as the limo rolled up the curb, he knew that his father wasn’t inside. Resentment bubbled, gut-deep and venomous, but he made no mention of Gabriel's absence. Instead, he greeted Gorilla and slid into the back seat, crumbling a cheese danish into the pockets of his coat. 

It was picnic weather, cloudy and bright, and the lush grounds of Parc Floral were already crowded with small groups of guests. Vendors peddled snacks and souvenirs, serving a steady stream of customers. A dozen-or-so tables had been cordoned off from the rest, situated in the shade of a brightly colored awning. Adrien's eye was swiftly drawn to the reporters clustered by the velvet ropes.

As soon as Gorilla opened the back door, he swept his kwami out of sight and smiled.

“Can I run to the restroom before we sit down? Father picked some clothes for me to change into.”

One locked stall and one transformation later, Chat climbed out of an unattended window on the shadowed side of the public restroom, taking off at a lope across the sun-dappled grass. 

“Thank god it’s Friday,” he quipped, vaulting over the outside wall and dropping to the strip of sidewalk beside it. “So, what’s up? You got the goods or not?”

“It hurts that you think I'm an amateur, Chat.” Lila unfolded from her slouch and produced a familiar phone from her jacket. “I nabbed it from his locker during PE. All I need now is to guess his passcode.”

“What have you tried so far?” 

“Birthday, parents’ birthdays, school ID, birth year—”

Neatly plucking his phone from her hand, Chat entered his passcode and flipped it to show her his home screen. 

“It’s the date we debuted as superheroes in Paris,” he explained. “Kind of a big day for the average Ladybug fan.”

“I didn't know I was dealing with an expert.” The muted sarcasm in Lila's voice could have seared a hole through solid steel. “I came through on my end, now you come through on yours.”

“It’s just gonna take a minute to download.” Chat tucked his baton against the small of his back and poked at the phone with the tip of one claw. “Okay, so, who are we sending it to it again?”

“Just click select all on his contacts list.”

“Great, lemme just...whoa. Lila, there’s hundreds of people on here.”

“Click select all,” she said, her tone steely. 

“Hold on just a sec. Adrien is our age, right? I know this was my idea, but at least half of these people are adults. Maybe we should just—”

“Just _do_ it. Quit _stalling_. Someone’s going to catch us if we keep standing around.” Lila lunged for the device in his hand, and Chat yanked it away, using his superior height to dangle it out of reach. 

“Would it kill you to chill out for like, two minutes? Excuse me for taking a couple of seconds to question whether we're about to be criminals."

He flipped the phone towards her to show her his mass text. “There, happy? Select all clicked. Missile launching in three, two, one…”

_Boop._

Both of them stood there in jaw-clenched silence until the processing bar filled and the screen refreshed.

“Oh, it looks like I didn’t get the text.” Lila patted her pocket and shrugged. “I guess he must have blocked me. What a spineless little coward.”

“Does it really matter? His career is over, and everyone knows that’s all he is.”

“Mm,” was Lila’s only response. Her face and posture were carefully controlled, but her eyes glittered behind her bangs, and malevolent satisfaction trickled off her like sweat.

Chat tucked his phone inside the pocket of his suit and took a step back towards the cobblestone wall. “I’ll take care of the evidence. You'd better get out of here before anyone sees you."

“I wasn’t planning on sticking around, anyway.” Smug as a cat with its face in the cream, Lila folded her arms across her chest. “_God,_ I just wish he could know it was me. Maybe he’ll learn to stay in his lane once Gabriel Agreste slaps him into next week.”

Chat smiled back at her, eyes half-lidded, and extracted his baton from the loops of his belt. 

"Maybe," he said, his voice surprisingly even. "But let's give credit where credit is due. This is as much my payback as yours."

Nodding his goodbye, he vaulted over the wall and took off running in Gorilla's footsteps.

  


* * *

  


Adrien arrived, Plagg in his pocket, and instantly caught sight of a red-clad figure standing by one of the VIP tables. 

Ladybug was smiling, talking and laughing, hemmed on all sides by excited civilians who'd gathered to ask for selfies and signatures. She didn't seem nervous at first glance. Only the subtle wringing of her hands betrayed her, and only months of familiarity as Chat gave him the ability to read her tics. 

Before Adrien could call out to her, there was a commotion to his right. A slim woman with fuschia hair appeared from thin air around the corner of the tent, harried assistants circling her like flies. _Prime Queen_, he thought, and racked his memory for her name as she advanced on him like a camera-wielding commando. 

“Hello, Madame Chamack. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Adrien, please, just call me Nadja.” She raised her index finger in a gesture he knew well: _just one question, and I’ll be out of your hair._ “I’m covering the event for TVi and was hoping for just a moment of your time.”

Plagg wriggled against his chest, but he pretended not to notice, flashing a warm smile. 

“Sure, why not? I have plenty of time to spare.”

“Excellent.” Nadja extracted her tablet from her purse and flipped it towards him, screen illuminated. “Adrien, this message was sent from your personal number to a mass number of recipients fifteen minutes ago. Would you care to comment on its contents?"

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his lady shift—her face blurred by distance, but unmistakably turned towards him. 

_Stay calm. Play innocent. Be cool, be cool, be cool. _

“I’m sorry, Nadja, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

"Adrien, please, there's no need to be embarrassed." She took a step forward, strategically raising her voice. "It's clear that you're the victim in this unfortunate situation. Help me get your side of the story out."

Even at a distance, Ladybug’s posture was easy to read. Her brow furrowed, and she veered in his direction, crossing the lawn in long, purposeful strides. The stark scarlet of her outfit stood out like a beacon against the crisp green grass, drawing the attention of everyone she passed. 

“What situation?” he asked. “I didn’t send any texts. Please, there must be some kind of mistake.”

"I think not, Adrien. This definitely came from your phone. I still have your info from when you were a guest on _Face to Face_."

"You mean _this_ phone?"

The small team of cameramen scattered like pigeons, and Adrien’s heart leapt into his throat as a familiar figure appeared in their midst.

It should have been impossible, but Ladybug looked even _better_ up close. Her blazer—the blazer Marinette had been sewing for _weeks_— was the same brilliant red as her superhero suit, layered over slacks and slim black boots. Her hair was tied back into its customary pigtails, bright red ribbons a splash of color against dark curls and rosy cheeks. 

In her hand was Adrien's phone: small, sleek, and utterly unmistakable against the matte black of her spandexed palm. 

“H-hi, Ladybug." He didn't bother trying to mask his stutter. "Um, y-yeah, that’s...that’s definitely mine. Thank you so much, I’ve been looking for it since I left school.”

Ladybug blinked, frowning at Nadja, concern and confusion mingled in her face. "It was left at my seat at the table over there," she said. "What’s going on, Adrien? Are you in some kind of trouble?”

Nadja pursed her lips and glanced between them shrewdly.

“If _you_ didn’t send it, then someone else must have done so on your behalf.” She pressed a little closer, dropping her volume. “It’s in your best interest to be concerned about this, Adrien. You’re clearly being warned before something worse can happen.”

Adrien smiled back at her, bland as dry toast. “I really don't know what this is about, but I'd like to judge for myself, if you don't mind."

Without further ado, he reached for Nadja’s tablet and hit play on the recorded message. 

_“Because someone should deal with him before he gets his claws in any deeper. I’m not in your place, but if I were, I think I’d want to pay him a visit.”_

Ladybug's face turned gray as ash.

He doubted that Nadja knew Lila’s voice, but the threat in her words was clear enough. If Adrien knew one thing about Parisian paparazzi, he knew that they didn't let go of a potential scoop until they'd seized it by the throat and shaken it to death. 

Sure enough, a small throng of reporters had begun to encroach on Nadja's territory. They edged in behind her, equipment at the ready, circling the scene like hungry sharks.

_“Whoa. Are you serious, Lila? I’m not about physically harming civilians. At all.”_

Perfect silence fell over the crowd, stifling all sound like a foot of fresh snow. 

Chat’s inflection was unmistakable, stamped into the city’s collective memory by countless newscasts and amateur interviews. Nobody spoke. Nobody _breathed_. They might as well have been magically transformed to stone. 

Ladybug, impossibly, turned even paler. 

_“I know, Chat. And I know how it sounds."_ Lila’s voice was crystal clear, the familiar words playing out in real time as precisely and indelibly as clockwork. _"But Adrien is famous, and his dad is rich. No matter what he does, no matter who he does it to, he’ll never face repercussions for his actions. The longer you leave him to his own devices, the more damage he’s going to do.”_

_“I take it you have proof, then?”_

_“Proof?”_

_“Of Adrien doing something bad enough to justify a Cataclysm to the face, besides pissing you off by putting you in the friend zone.”_

The silence splintered, and frenzied murmuring broke out amidst their company. Beside him, his lady stood stiff as a board, features wobbling as she fought for composure. The horror on her face was a sucker punch to the gut; but Adrien, frozen in place, said nothing.

_“It's not as easy as you make it sound. He’s convinced the entire world that he’s perfect.”_

_“So, let’s get this straight. You don’t have proof.”_

_"It doesn’t matter.”_ Lila’s corresponding increase in volume caused the recording to fissure with static. _"Ladybug trusts you, Chat Noir. **Paris** trusts you. You can do whatever the hell you want, and they’ll fall over themselves to find reasons to defend you.”_

Keenly aware of the dozens of cameras that would be fixed to his face in the next thirty seconds, Adrien calmed his rattling breath and swallowed saliva into his mouth. 

With one last crackle, the recording cut off, leaving artificial silence in its wake.

  


* * *

  


Nadja Chamack was the first to speak.

"So, Adrien, now that you’ve heard it, I’m sure you can see why I thought it was newsworthy.” She held her microphone to Adrien’s mouth, subtly gesturing to the cameramen behind her. “Can you identify the female speaker in the recording? Is she someone personally known to you?”

He kept his face completely blank. 

“It must be Lila. Lila Rossi. She accompanied me to Fashion Week a couple weeks back.” He shrugged, helpless, and let his expression flicker. “Chat Noir warned me about her, but I thought he was overreacting. I guess I should have taken him seriously.” 

At once, the press exploded around him, a barrage of shouted questions pelting him from every direction.

“Adrien,” said Nadja, taking advantage of their proximity to raise her voice above the rest, “can you comment on the nature of your and Lila’s relationship?” 

“There is none. I’ve never implied that we could be anything but friends.” Adrien took a graceful step backwards, bringing him closer to Ladybug’s side. “She told our class she was Ladybug’s best friend, and she tried to tell me she inherited a miraculous. I would have believed it if Ladybug hadn't confronted her.”

“Ladybug, is that true? Can you confirm that?”

Ladybug jolted, eyes darting around the dense cluster of cameras. For an instant, she faltered, and an uncharacteristic burst of panic flashed across her bloodless face.

Closing the slim distance that remained between them, he reached for her hand, closing his fingers around her wrist.

“I’m so sorry for dragging you into this,” he whispered. “You can go, Ladybug. I'll sort this out.”

He squeezed her hand, infusing it with every ounce of apology he couldn’t speak aloud. Ladybug stared back at him, seemingly dumbstruck, her grip tightening around his own. Then the panic slid off her face, and icy determination slammed down in its place. 

She squeezed his hand back, and then she turned to the crowd. 

“Yes, it’s true.” Her voice rose easily over the clamor, each word sharp and clear as glass. “It was my responsibility to confront Mademoiselle Rossi before her story caused her or her friends to be targeted. But it caused her akumatization, which I deeply regret.”

“Ladybug, in light of recent news, was public safety your _only_ reason for confronting Mademoiselle Rossi directly?”

Adrien balked, but Ladybug simply raised her eyebrows. She pulled her hand free and placed it at his back, fingers spread against the dip of his spine. 

“Reasons are reasons,” she answered simply, before she hooked her arm around his waist and pulled him flush against her side.

Adrien’s legs—the pointless things—buckled beneath him like plastic straws. 

“Adrien, I’m Marcel Poussiant with TV5Monde. Can you tell us why Mademoiselle Rossi is inciting harm against you?”

“I don’t know, Monsieur Poussiant.” Only the cameras hemming them in kept him red-faced and tenuously upright. “Most of my fans are nothing but kind, but I’ve dealt with more than my fair share of stalkers.”

“You said Chat Noir has been in contact? Do you think he’s responsible for leaking this audio to your contacts?”

“All I know is that my phone vanished from my locker at school, then mysteriously showed up at Ladybug’s table." He made his best attempt at a knowing smile, which was difficult when it felt like his lungs had imploded and pumped his blood full of electricity instead of air. "That said, I shouldn't leap to conclusions. Whoever it was, they clearly wanted to stay anonymous.”

The reporter nodded, scribbling in his notepad. Adrien's confidence returned in a white-hot flush, radiating outwards from Ladybug’s fingertips. 

“Sofia Yaloui, representing France Télévisions. Ladybug, you and Chat Noir have protected public figures from personal safety threats in the past. Is this one of those situations?”

“Chat and I serve all civilians without bias,” she said. “But Mademoiselle Rossi has targeted Adrien not once, but _twice_ in the last eight months. It's clear that her desire to cause him harm outlasts the effects of akumatization. So yes, I consider this a special case.”

“Can you tell us what Chat Noir thinks of the speculation surrounding your relationship status?”

“You can ask him yourself the next time you see him.” Ladybug lifted her chin, staring the woman down with the poise of a master archer. “I don’t need his permission to conduct my personal life how I wish. He respects that, and so should you.” 

It felt—

—It felt the way it did when they were sky-high above their city, her head on his shoulder and her laugh in his ear, their hair whipped together by the breeze off the sea. It felt the way it did when he was alone in his room at night, turning her bracelet over and over in his hands, wondering what it would feel like to kiss her on the lips—to map her freckles with his fingers—to read a warm secret into her stumbling, stuttering words. 

Like the sea breaking over him. Like the sky opening above him. 

Like walking on wire in front of the whole world—but he was with her, and _she_ was with _him._

“Adrien—” Nadja grappled her way to the front of the crowd, clearly intent on regaining control of her interview. “Adrien, look here, please. I understand that you’re here today as a representative of your father’s company. What actions, if any, do you expect will be taken in light of the fact that you’re the face of the Gabriel brand?”

Adrien smiled, coverboy consummate, and took spiteful comfort in knowing the right words. 

“I feel very safe when the Hero of Paris is with me.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ladybug flush, her fierce expression slightly softened by the deep blush across her cheeks. “And I can say with confidence that my _father_ feels the same.”

He blinked at the lens of Nadja’s camera, his tone as dry as withered leaves. 

“An attack on me is an attack on his legacy, and on the company he devoted the best years of his life to building. As such, my father will make _every possible effort_ to defer to Ladybug with regards to my safety." 

The grin on his face was the wrong sort of grin—sharp-toothed and feral, the way he grinned when he was Chat—and he _knew_ it was a mistake, but he just didn’t _ care._

“He will, of course, be investigating this threat to the full extent of his personal resources. Anything less would be negligence—a crime of which, as all Paris knows, my father would never, _ever_ be guilty.”

The rest of the reporters crowded forward, shouted questions running together as he turned into the circle of Ladybug’s arm. His lady stepped forward—cool as dry ice—and wended her way through the army of press with the ironclad certainty of a prophet parting the sea. 

Where she led, as always, it was easy for Adrien to follow.

  


* * *

  


“That was a lot of drama out there, Adrien. Do you need to get out of here? Can you tell me if you’re okay?”

The noise that left his mouth was a punched-out little laugh, equal parts nervousness and giddy, stupid elation. Was he okay? Was he _okay_ that Ladybug had held him as though he _belonged_ to her; had spoken his real name like a silver bullet in front of every major news outlet in Paris? No, he wasn’t fucking _okay_. He was about to enter planetary orbit and explode into a billion pieces of starlight.

“I’m good,” he whispered. “Thanks for saving me. Again.”

“No problem, _beau gosse_, but I’d rather not repeat it. Chat is the one who’s good with the press.” Her smile faded, and she pursed her lips. “I’m really sorry that he lifted your phone. He must be nearby still, if he left it at my seat.”

A guilty flush crept up the back of Adrien’s neck as Ladybug turned aside, flicking open the cover of her yo-yo. 

“Maybe I’ll just call him. No use putting it off.”

“Right now?” he asked, his voice a little weak. “Are you—are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Ladybug glanced up in surprise, fingers already tapping at the screen of her device. Clearly mistaking the source of his hesitation, she set a gentle hand on his elbow.

“Adrien, I promise, you have nothing to worry about from Chat. He acts like hot shit, but he’s made of mashed potato. He burst into tears in a bakery once because he felt sorry for the pastries that didn’t get picked.”

Adrien cringed inside his skin. 

“Ladybug, could we maybe talk? There's something important I've been meaning to tell you. ” 

“Of course. As soon as we've sorted this out.” Ladybug punched his contact into her phone and grimaced as its signal dropped. “If Chat was involved in sabotaging Lila, then I need to find out exactly what happened.”

“Ladybug—”

“Any minute now. He’s probably de-transformed. Maybe he’s feeding his—uh, I mean, maybe he’s recharging.” She groaned aloud as the call timed out. “God, I'm _so_ sorry. I should have predicted this. Heaven forbid that I take some time off and eat petit fours in the park with my boyfriend, or the city might dissolve into a pile of dust.”

“_My lady_,” Adrien exploded, before he could lose the last of his courage—and froze as the end of her sentence registered, his brain summarily emptying of blood. 

Ladybug dropped her phone with a clatter. 

“What did you just call me?” 

Adrien floundered, opening and closing his mouth. Her hand was still on his elbow, and her lips worked soundlessly, eyes blown wide behind the crimson of her mask. That face—oh _god_—it was all Marinette. It was all her, all her, _all her:_ wounded knees and needle-pricked fingers, morning melodies and afternoon light, clockwork cunning behind eyes soft as summer. 

_Fuck it,_ he thought faintly. _Fuck it, fuck it, **fuck it.**_

“You heard me,” he said, his heart in his throat. “And I heard _you,_ Marinette Dupain-Cheng."

The color drained from Ladybug’s cheeks. He thought she’d say something, thought she’d _do_ something, thought she’d shriek or blubber or fall flat on her ass; but she simply stood there, her jaw falling slack, her fingers loosening as she looked at him—

—looked at him, and _saw_ him. 

“Chat,” she said. It wasn’t a question, but a statement of fact, and her eyes were abruptly, _terrifyingly_ opaque. 

Sudden panic fisted in his stomach, turning his skin to paper and his legs to stone.

“Did you mean it?” he asked. And that was the _real_ question, wasn’t it? The only one that mattered—that ever _had_ mattered. The question that gnawed at the spaces between his ribs, chewing his bones and sucking his marrow, leeching the blood from his too-full heart with every word that fell from her lips. 

“Because _I_ meant it,” he said, when Ladybug didn’t respond. He took a step forward, fumbling to catch her hands, clumsy with hope and _pathetic_ desperation. “I meant every word of what I said on the steps. I really like you, I’ve _always_ liked you, I’m losing my _mind_ with how much I like you.”

She stood there, shock-still, and Adrien pressed on, propelled by a maniacal need to fill the silence. “What do I have to _do_ for you to believe that I want to be with you? Because I’ll get on my knees, Mari. I’m serious. I’ll beg.”

Ladybug made a noise like he'd punched her in the throat, a hysterical little giggle that was halfway to a whimper. It wasn’t a no, but it wasn’t a _yes_ either; and _shit_, he was shaking now, bracing himself to shatter, shrinking to his barest, most insignificant essence. The black hole of fear that had spawned inside him grew wider with every passing second—every second that she just _stood_ there and _looked_ at him. 

Ladybug swallowed. 

She opened her mouth.

She closed it again and bit her lower lip. 

And then she leaned into him, feet pushing off the grass, hands clearing his shoulders to cup the curve of his face. Her thumbs traced glowing tracks down his cheeks, close enough to kiss if he turned his head—and then; and _then_, her fingers tangled into his hair, dragging Adrien down, down, _down. _

It lasted only a second—a fierce, clumsy press of her lips that barely registered as contact at all—and there was nothing in the wake of it but the roar in his ears; the brush of her fingers on his skin, hyperreal. 

She settled onto her heels, damp-eyed and silent. One hand lingered on the back of his neck, while the other lifted to touch her lips. “You—” she began; and then began again, her voice gutted. 

“You asked me what you had to do. To make me believe it.”

Adrien inhaled, lung-tearing laughter caught in his throat, unable to process anything at all but pure, all-consuming _relief._

"Mari,” he croaked, “buginette, listen, I—"

  


* * *

  


Whatever _unforgivably_ smitten thing was about to leave his trainwreck mouth, it was cut off by the shriek of splintering wood, like the sound of a tree being hewn in two. 

_"Where is Adrien Agreste?"_

Oh, no.

Oh, _no._

_No no no no **no.**_

Adrien turned just in time to catch sight of a painfully familiar orange-and-white figure, midway through the motion of vaulting the garden wall and landing with a crash on the table of petit fours. Clouds of gold dust exploded at her feet, solidifying into a dozen identical copies. 

Volpina straightened, eyes luminous. Adrien marked the moment she spotted him, baring her teeth in a wolfish snarl as she extended her flute to its full, lethal length. 

“You _set me up_, didn’t you? You and Chat Noir! You were in on it together from the start!” 

Cogwheels whirred in Adrien’s skull, slowly registering the narrow distance between Lila-twice-squared and his squishy civilian body. Too many variables, too little time. Akuma. Marinette. Press. Secret identity. 

_Fuck_, his brain supplied succinctly.

Volpina leapt off the table, landing in the grass with a heavy thud. All ten-or-so doppelgangers fanned out behind her, seething and swarming like moths in half-light, and opened their mouths in eerie synchronicity. Their voices layered and layered again until they combined in a single ear-shattering scream.

“I hope that sucking face with the Hero of Paris was a good way to spend your last day on the planet, because you're _dead_, Adrien. You're history, you hear me? This is the last time you'll ever screw with me, you two-faced, pasty-assed, lying little _shit!_"

_Fuck_, he thought again. _Once more, with feeling._

But before there was time to lament his luck, Ladybug seized his shoulder and snapped out her yo-yo, and for the umpteenth time in the past two weeks, Adrien found himself being swept off his feet.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ladybug?"

His only response was Ladybug’s panting. Adrien's legs bounced up and down as she clutched him close in a princess carry, sprinting across the lawn and towards the gardens with wild, single-minded abandon.

“Ladybug,” he tried again. “Why are we running _away_ from the akuma?”

“Shut up," she gasped.

“We have to go back, my lady. Volpina wants me, but that doesn’t mean she won’t hurt anyone else.”

“I'll deal with Lila _after_ you’re safe.” Ladybug shifted the arm at his back, pressing him closer against her chest. “If you know who I am, then you _know_ I'm the reason she hates you so much."

“_Marinette_, you don't have to clean up my messes, okay?” His arms tightened around her neck. “I just need to find someplace to transform, and then—”

Ladybug ground to a stop mid-stride. Her eyes found his, bright with terror, and Adrien’s stomach lurched with sympathy.

“You really don’t get it, do you, Chat? When you were just Adrien, I could _protect_ you. I could toss you over my shoulder like a sack of _potatoes_ and whisk you away from danger before anything worse happened to you.” She held him so tightly he could barely breathe. “But Chat? Chat is _always_ taking hits. Always between me and anyone who could hurt me. And I can’t keep him safe if—I can’t keep _you_ safe if you're not gonna _let_ me!”

Adrien’s mouth flapped open, then shut.

At once, Ladybug’s grip on him gentled. Slowly—_carefully_—she set him on his feet, sheltered by a bank of flowering bushes. 

“I don’t know how you figured me out, and I don’t know why you didn’t tell me, but I swear to God I will lose my _shit_ if you make me watch you get hurt _again_. So sit yourself down on your cute, _idiot_ ass, because you're staying put until I come up with a plan.”

“Hold on," he said blankly. "You think it's cute?"

Ladybug's face turned fire hydrant red, and he grimaced, fidgeting with the cuffs of his suit. 

“You also think I'm an idiot, and you're probably right."

With a sound like a bagpipe being stepped on, she dropped to the ground in a fetal crouch. "All of you is cute," she said despairingly. "Now will you _please_ get behind these bushes and hide?” 

Heart still racing, Adrien obliged her, ducking out of sight behind the fragrant foliage.

“Please, Ladybug, just hear me out. I should've had a plan for if Lila got akumatized. I probably should have come up with a better plan _period_, but I wasn’t being reckless or irresponsible or—or _stupid_, I promise.”

Ladybug’s face fell. “That isn't what I meant.”

“No, I really am sorry, my lady. You always have to fix what everyone else screws up." 

His partner—his _best friend_—reached out and touched his shoulder, kneading her fingers into the tension she found there. At once, he curled himself into her touch. She froze for an instant, her blush deepening, before the soothing rhythm of her hands resumed.

"God," she muttered. "I'm going to have to get used to this."

“I'm sorry," Adrien mumbled again.

“Chat, I'm the _last_ person who wants you to apologize for putting Lila through her paces. Your plan was perfect. I couldn't have done better. I just wish I'd been able to have your back."

"Well, _I_ wish that I'd made it to two dates without best laid plans blowing up in my face." Flattening himself against Ladybug's side, Adrien hugged his knees to his chest. "I wish I could do something to make being with me easier for you."

Ladybug drew back from him, face inscrutable. It was hard to pull away from the warmth of her hands, but he met her eyes as best he could, throat bobbing as he swallowed.

"Adrien," she said, "it already is."

Before he could come up with an appropriate response—like imploding into his composite atoms—a nasally voice piped up from his suit pocket. 

“So, has it happened? Are the two of you finished? Lips locked, identities revealed, long-suffering kwamis spared from insanity?” Plagg wriggled upwards until his head poked free. “Aren’t you glad to be sharing your spit and the single synapse you have between you? _Finally_.”

“Oh,” he said hoarsely. “I guess you’ve met my kwami.”

“Did you forget I was here? That stings, Adrien.” Plagg let out a luxurious yawn. “At least I'll get to rub your first kiss in Tikki's face for the next hundred millenia.”

Ladybug cleared her throat, and a serious expression overtook her face.

“Listen, kitty, it’s just like last time. We’ll wear ourselves out with Volpina’s copies if we don’t figure out how to weed out the real one.” She plucked her yo-yo from its place at her hip. “I’m going to try my Lucky Charm.”

“So soon?” he asked, even as he watched her toss the weapon into the air. A spotted tube of superglue fell into her hands, and she turned it over, frown deepening.

“Seriously? Come _on_.”

Adrien stared at the tiny tube of glue, no bigger in size than his index finger. “I’m sorry, bug, I can’t figure it out either.”

“I know how I’m supposed to use it, I just don’t _like_ it.” A note of annoyance crept into Ladybug’s voice. “I hope you can hear me in there, Tikki, because you and I are going to have _words_.”

"What's the problem? Tell me how I can help.” 

“I will, but before I explain, there's something I need you to understand.” She cupped her hands around his face, thumbs tracing the edges of an invisible mask. Adrien's attention zeroed in on every electric point of contact, gleefully ignorant of his pressing need to parse out the red-and-black item between them.

“I have to stay hidden if this is going to work, but I’ll be right there beside you the entire time. I will rip her _spine_ out through her _throat_ if you chip so much as a toenail in front of me, and that's a _promise._"

A bagpipe-adjacent noise of his own squeezed from between his teeth like toothpaste. When it had finished, he jerked his head in a nod, unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth.

“Duly noted. Let's hear the plan."

"Okay," she murmured, her eyes full of worry that he couldn't—_wouldn't_—let himself linger on. "When it comes down to it, it's pretty uncomplicated. Volpina can't beat you in a straight up fight, so the only thing that I need you to do is—"

  


* * *

  


_Find the real one._

The order echoed in Chat Noir's ears as he hit the trampled grass in a crouch. In the short time since he and Ladybug had absconded, Volpina’s clones had multiplied tenfold. She was _everywhere_: flipping tables, smashing cameras, herding throngs of shrieking guests. Clouds of gold dust peppered the grass as the clones vanished on physical contact, only for new ones to instantly erupt in their place. 

“Everyone stay calm! It’s just a trick, the illusions can’t hurt you!”

Even as he said it, a scream rang out in the distance. Chat whipped out his staff and whirled, pinpointing the source as a hysterical woman huddled beside a row of hedges.

“My daughter!” she whimpered, grabbing his hand as he approached. “She hurt my daughter!”

Following the line of her quivering arm, he spotted a pale heap in the distant grass. Blood streamed from a gash in the girl’s shoulder, lurid red against her white shirt, and she was moaning, curled up to avoid being trampled.

His stomach flipped with a sickening lurch. In a matter of seconds, he was at the girl’s side, filling his lungs to call for an ambulance as he stooped and ushered her into his arms. 

The second he touched her, she poofed into a cloud of golden dust.

The girl’s mother screamed behind him. Chat blinked at his empty hands and stumbled backwards, cursing in silence. 

“Please stay calm and stay where you are!” He raised his voice to be heard over the chaos. “They’re just illusions, _everyone stay calm_!”

Nobody paid him a sliver of attention. The park was overrun by panicked guests, hiding behind trees and overturned tables, shoving each other as they stampeded to safety or attempted to reach their illusory loved ones. The Heroes’ Day fundraiser was one of the most televised events of the year—a fact that Lila had been well aware of. The entire _city_ was set up to see him fail; to see helpless civilians cowering in terror where Ladybug had left them to fend for themselves. 

_Find the real one,_ he thought with increasing urgency. _She has to be here, she has to have seen me, lure her out of hiding, where is she, where is she—___

_ _“Chat Noir?”_ _

_ _Chat whipped around at the sound of his name—and started, shaking his head to clear his double vision. _ _

“_Marinette?_” 

_ _“Chat Noir!” she exclaimed as she made a beeline towards him. “Oh, thank god you’re here! I-I wasn’t planning on coming, I’m supposed to be with Alya, but Ladybug is wearing the outfit I made her and I thought I should be here to answer any questions and I brought my designs so I could promote my new website and—” She reached him, doubling over with her hands on her knees. “Oh god, Chat, this is all my fault. I have to find Adrien and make sure he’s alright.”_ _

___Oh my **god**, you must be **joking**._

He took her in from head to toe: her messy hair; her monogrammed backpack; her striped white T-shirt and pink capris, the clothes he’d seen her wearing at school. Carefully, he reached out and brushed her sleeve. Its texture was lost to the leather of his glove, but her skin was solid—soft to the touch. 

“Marinette,” he said slowly, “why on earth would you think that?” 

Volpina looked up at him with Marinette’s eyes—brushed Marinette’s black hair out of Marinette’s flushed face—and shook her head. “Lila and I had a fight at school. Adrien found out, he tried to get payback, and now they have _drama_ and it’s some big, stupid thing.” 

“Well, princess, there’s no need to worry. I’m sure that Ladybug has taken your friend to safety.”

“Let me help you find them,” she insisted. “You’ll need to combine forces if you want to win this fight. Adrien can hide at my house, he’ll be safe there.”

Chat bit his tongue so hard it drew blood, straining to hold back a fit of laughter. But Marinette was studying him with too-sharp eyes, so he forced his lips to lay flat and nodded. 

“Make sure you stay right behind me, okay? The illusions can’t hurt you, but the real Volpina could be hiding anywhere.”

She nodded vigorously. Chat pivoted, turning his back on her, and flung himself headlong at the nearest doppelganger. 

He watched Marinette out of the corner of his eye as he swung his baton in a wide, reckless arc. Golden dust exploded around him, clouding his vision and pricking his nose, only to re-solidify seconds later. Chat kept swinging, again and again and again, cleaving his way through the crowd of clones like a drowning man at war with the waves. 

For every copy that disintegrated, two more sprung up in its place. Marinette, to her credit, was playing along gamely. She pressed herself flat against Chat's back, swinging her little purse at anything that approached her. 

“I think this might be a distraction, Chat.” God, even her _voice_ was a perfect match. “The real Volpina must be chasing after Adrien. We should try and get some height, get a clear line of sight.”

“Say no more. Hold onto me, I’ll get us up high.”

He drove his baton into the dirt at his feet, physically fighting the urge to recoil as Marinette—_Volpina_—clambered into his arms. His right hand—his _ring_ hand—settled between her shoulder blades as she hooked both legs around his waist. He saw her dart a glance at it, swift and considering, before she leaned forward to wrap her arms around his neck. 

Moments later, they were rocketing into the air. Within seconds, they had risen above the peaks of the surrounding tents, the grounds of Parc Floral receding below in a dappled quilt of gold and green. Propping her up against him, he balanced atop the end of his baton and brought his ring hand up to her shoulder. 

“Any sign of Ladybug or Adrien? I can’t see much while I’m holding you like this.”

“Can you go any higher? There’s too many trees to see.”

She was lying, _obviously_, but he obliged her nonetheless. Usually he’d look for a lofty rooftop to get a panoramic view of the city below, but Volpina had clearly accounted for their surroundings. Instead of skyscrapers, they were surrounded by parkland; lush gardens and cultivated forest a sprawling patchwork at their feet. 

“How about now?” he asked breathlessly. “Marinette? Can you spot them?”

Tucked securely against his chest, she lifted her head to meet his gaze. Her fingers dug into the sides of his shoulders with a pressure that shouldn’t have reached him through his suit.

“That’s plenty, Chat. We’re probably at least a few stories above the ground.” She smiled, sharp as a razor’s edge. “I can’t imagine what would happen if you lost your footing at this height.”

“Cats always land on their feet.” Tightening his grip on the staff, he winked. “And I’m definitely not going to drop you, princess.”

Quick as a snake striking, her hand lashed out and seized his wrist in a viselike grip. Chat swayed precariously, struggling to stay upright, shifting his feet to maintain his center of gravity. Her legs were still wrapped around his waist, leaving him no way to fend her off without releasing the staff and losing his balance.

“I’m not your princess, you _absolute ass._” Her grin was so _wrong_ on Marinette’s face—a grin full of gums and too-white teeth. “And I’m really not the one you should be worrying about right now.”

He widened his eyes and jerked away—as though he was trying to get leverage, trying to rip free—but Volpina’s grip was steel around his wrist, crunching his bones together like twigs. 

“You should have known better than to go up against me, but you thought you were smarter than me, and now it’s too late.” With her free left hand, she reached for his ring. “Leave a good-looking smear on the ground for me, Chat Noir. You might be the first, but you won’t be the last.”

Pinching his miraculous between thumb and forefinger, she _pulled_—

  


* * *

  


—and she pulled—

—and she _pulled._

Chat looked on with increasing amusement as Volpina tugged until she was red in the face. The longer it went on, the more frantic she became. A host of emotions paraded across her face—rage, confusion, sheer dumb _embarrassment_—but no amount of prying and clawing could persuade the miraculous to budge from Chat's finger.

“You alright there, foxface?" he said at last. "Having a little bit of trouble with that?”

Frozen in horror, she released his hand. 

“Sticky fingers, huh? No worries. Me too.”

Literally—courtesy of Ladybug’s Lucky Charm—but the pun was too good to waste on an enemy.

Without fanfare, he lunged. It was an easy enough thing to reach across her body and grab the foxtail necklace dangling at her throat, hidden from sight by layers of illusory clothing. 

“_No!_” she shrieked, as he yanked it over her head and dropped it into the open air beneath them. “No, no, _no_, god _damn_ it!”

Marinette disappeared in a bubbling purple mass. Seconds later, the magic dissipated, leaving Lila Rossi clutching him for purchase. The static power had leeched from her skin—the superhuman strength from her grip—and she was nothing but a teenage girl once more, her entire body trembling with fury as she slammed her fists against his shoulders.

“_Screw_ you!” she bellowed. “You piece of _shit!_”

“In your dreams and my nightmares,” he responded flatly. “You’d better stop hitting me if you know what’s good for you, because I already wish I could drop you as is.”

Lila stopped flailing and froze in place. A beat passed as the situation asserted itself: she was back to being a civilian; she was thirty meters in the air; and Chat—irrespective of how much she hated him—was the only thing stopping her from splattering on the grass like a piece of overripened fruit. 

“Screw you,” she repeated stubbornly. But her voice was a whisper, and her complexion had turned the white of maggoty flour. 

Chat swayed gently atop the end of his baton, grinning like a shark as Lila blanched. 

"Like I said: I’m for my lady only. She’s probably cleansing the akuma as we speak.”

As though on cue—Ladybug’s timing was _always_ impeccable—a burst of pink light exploded across the grass. The luminous spirals of the miraculous cure lit up every cranny of the ravaged fairground, restoring Parc Floral to its original state. Together, he and Lila looked down at the spread of moving dots below. 

He was too high up to distinguish figures, but whatever guests were still in the area had begun to emerge on the open green. Smartphones flashed, like winking stars. A small crowd had already gathered where the base of Chat’s baton was planted in the dirt.

“Looks to me like there's a welcoming party. Any last words about trying to kill me?”

“I _hate_ you,” she hissed, and her eyes were wild. “I hate you, I hate you, I _hate_ you so much, you and Adrien and Ladybug and Marinette, I’ll make you all regret the day you chose to mess with me, I’ll—”

Chat inhaled and shifted positions, centering his balance over his carefully placed feet. 

Then—with one elegant sweep of his arm—he shoved Lila Rossi out of his lap.

  


* * *

  


“That was very childish of you, Chat.”

“You caught her, didn’t you? She’s perfectly fine."

"Physically, yes. Mentally, who knows? I’m surprised she didn’t break her spine out of spite.”

The necklace was still in Ladybug’s hand, having reverted to its unbroken state with the world reset of the miraculous cure. She hadn’t bothered attempting to return it. The last they’d seen of Lila, she’d been surrounded by park security, shoulders hunched and posture wilting as a plainclothes officer called the Italian embassy.

“I have to give her credit, my lady, she made a pretty convincing you.”

“Poor Marinette,” said Ladybug wryly. “I guess our friendship fell apart after she found out we were both in love with the same boy.”

_In love with the same boy._ She said it so _casually._ He couldn’t have been less equipped to respond if she’d picked up a flowerpot and smashed it over his head. 

“You wanna get out of here?” he managed to choke out. “If you want to talk, we should probably make time before I have to reappear as Adrien.” 

“Sounds good to me.” Ladybug scanned their surroundings—no doubt checking for peeping paparazzi—before she stepped over to his side. Just as he prepared to vault them into midair, she rose onto her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek, lightning-quick and just as electrifying.

“_Bien joué_, Chat.”

She took his elbow, staring at him expectantly. Chat clutched his staff until he heard his knuckles crack, grasping for composure like a grub trying to touch the sun. 

“Chat?” said Ladybug, after several seconds of silence. “Are we leaving?”

“_Oh!_” It burst from his mouth at ear-piercing volume, and he bit his tongue as Ladybug winced. “_Bien joué_, b-buginette.”

It was nothing short of an act of God that they made it to the streets without slamming into a tree. By the time they arrived at their usual hangout—a secluded rooftop several streets from Tom and Sabine’s—Ladybug seemed to have come to her senses. She plopped to a seat at the edge of the gutter and patted the empty spot beside her, donning an appropriately rueful expression.

“I’m sorry, Chat. I should have asked you first if you were okay with it.”

“I’m definitely _okay_ with it,” he blurted; so fervently that Ladybug looked taken aback. _Shit_. Ten words into the most critical conversation of his life, and he’d already butchered it by being—_himself_. “I mean—you don’t have to ask, Ladybug. You can totally kiss me anywhere, anytime.”

“Anywhere?” she repeated, with a cheeky little wink. _Oh **god.**_ It must have been obvious that his begging heart was about to leap out through his open mouth, because she ducked her head and bit back a laugh.

“Sorry, I’m done. For real this time.” Straight-lipped and serious, she turned back to face him. “Tell me everything from the beginning, and ask me whatever you like. I won’t interrupt until you’re finished, I promise.”

Temples pounding, he sank to a seat beside her. 

“My lady, I’ve been happier in the last two weeks than I've been in _years_. And not just because you asked me on a date, though obviously—_obviously_—I’m over the moon about that, too.” He swallowed his nervousness back into his throat. “I’ve always wished I could spend more time with you. Get to be _with_ you outside the attacks, when we’re not—working, or fighting, or trying to keep secrets.”

Ladybug quieted, her humorous mood fading. 

“Me too, Chat. I guess I never felt like I could really afford the option.” The wistfulness in her voice made his chest ache anew. “People expect a lot of me when I’m wearing my mask. Either they worship the dirt that I flick from my nails, or they tear me limb from limb for my mistakes.”

“That’s celebrity for you,” he answered dryly. "It’s been like that my entire life.”

Ladybug patted the gutter beside her again. Eager but hesitant, he shuffled closer.

“No wonder you’re so—_you_, as Chat.” She seemed lost in thought, though not in a bad way. “It's hard to believe that I was the one who slipped up. I always thought I would know you on sight.”

Her shoulder bumped his through the material of their suits, and she cozied up to his side until their thighs were touching. He'd never read into their easy closeness, but seeing _Marinette_ beneath the spots and red ribbons made his pulse speed up like a runaway train. 

“I didn’t figure it out until the day after the gala, but it wouldn’t have changed what I did either way.” He forced himself to breathe; to keep his voice steady. “I thought there was no way I could get _stupider_ about liking you, but god, my lady, I was so, _so_ wrong. It’s just—it’s just that…”

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Ladybug deflate. “Just what?”

Gathering all his courage in the palm of his hand, Chat lowered his chin to the top of her head. It may have been the least of the concerns that faced them now—that would face them always, if they were going to _work_—but curiosity consumed him from the inside out, and if he didn’t ask _now_, he’d take his questions to his grave. 

“I just want to know, why did you change your mind about me? You told me as Chat that you loved someone else. And you never wanted to be alone with me as Adrien, either.” Even now, it stung to say it aloud. “Then all of a sudden you _liked_ me, and you were taking me on dates, and you were flirting with me all the time and teasing me at school and I just—it felt like—like I hit my head and woke up in a dream, somehow.”

He darted a glance at her, not daring to meet her gaze—but Ladybug was looking directly at him, her eyes wide and terrifically blue.

“Why did I—_what?_”

“Did it have something to do with the gala?” Chat rubbed the itch at the back of his neck, an anxious habit he’d never managed to kick. “It can’t have been because of something I did _after_. Unless you have a thing for—um, I dunno—gaping idiots who stare at you in class and fail at speaking sensible sentences around you.” 

The silence stretched on for almost a full minute. Ladybug did nothing but stare at him, stunned, her jaw gone slack with disbelief. At long last, her mouth clicked shut, and a slow epiphany dawned on her face. 

“Maybe,” she muttered. “It’s starting to look likely.”

Raising her hands to either side of his face, she sandwiched his cheeks between her palms.

“Listen to me very carefully, Chat, because I’m only going to admit this once, and I really, _really_ want it to sink in.”

Chat gulped and waited for her to continue. A familiar anthem stirred inside his chest, pressing itself to the joint of his ribs like a trapped bird against the bars of a cage. 

“There _is_ no one else,” said Ladybug warmly. “It’s _you_, Adrien. It’s been you from the beginning.”

Her palms were dry against the apples of his cheeks, and her eyes were bright with something like amusement. He _burned_ beneath those eyes, as though he’d been turned inside out. He couldn’t put words to the emotion that consumed him—somewhere between being clipped by a truck and being pumped full of stardust until he thought he’d explode.

“Me?” It left him as a wrecked little wheeze. “What do you mean, it’s been—what do you mean it was _me?_”

“I’m sorry. I really thought you knew.” Ladybug poked her tongue into her cheek. “I thought there was no way—I mean, _everyone_ knew."

“Knew _what?_”

“About my crush on you. Or—Marinette’s crush, on Adrien.” Her face grew darker by degrees, but she didn’t take her hands away from his face. “I wasn’t _avoiding_ you at school. The opposite, actually. I tried so hard to get you to notice me, but every time you spoke to me, I freaked out and froze.”

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Taking in his silence, Ladybug leaned back.

“The day I got home after asking you out, I screamed with my face on the floor for _hours_. Maman thought a murderer had smashed in the skylight.” A breathy laugh squeezed out of her then, and her hands drifted down to rest on his shoulders. “I told her I was _heartbroken_. It was the best day of my entire life, and I had to front like I was—I dunno. All broken up about my good friend _Ladybug_ snapping you out from under me, I guess.”

Chat stared back at her, wonderstruck and speechless.

“I tried to tell you. _Really,_ I tried. I chickened out of telling you so many times our entire class was ready to tie me to the train tracks.” Ladybug smiled, small and shy. “Even after I knew you liked me, it scared me, thinking you might not mean it.”

She huffed another tiny laugh.

“Of all the things I could possibly be afraid of. I should be furious that you told me who you were, but all I am is so, _so_ relieved.”

Words were still a work in progress, so he simply gathered her up in his arms, positioning her head so it was cushioned by his shoulder. Ladybug allowed it, letting him guide her, her eyes drifting shut as he tucked his arm around her and finger-combed her hair away from her brow. 

“You meant it, then?” His voice was so quiet he could barely hear it. “You really want to do this, despite everything?”

“At the very least, I want to try and make it work.”

“It _will_ work,” he said eagerly. “It _has_ worked, already. If you hadn’t known who I was and vice versa, Volpina might have fooled us during today’s fight.”

Ladybug hummed in thought against his shoulder. If nothing else, she seemed to be considering it.

"I think the publicity can work to our benefit, as far as getting you away from your father. But until we figure it out, we should try and stay out of the headlines.” Her nose wrinkled adorably as she scrunched up her face. “And we should _try_ and scale back on the hijinks at school. If we act the way we’ve been acting, Alya will get suspicious.”

She was right, of course—she usually was—but he made no attempt to hide his reluctance. Pressing his nose to the part in her hair, he blew a playful breath in her ear.

"Just pretend I'm a stranger. The most devilishly handsome stranger you've ever seen, but a stranger nonetheless."

Ladybug snorted, but she didn’t shrug him off. 

"Maybe I’ll make up an imaginary boyfriend so that everyone stops looking at me like a puppy with three legs.”

"Can I have imaginary beef with your imaginary boyfriend?"

"No.”

"Can we make up a code so I can flirt with you in class?"

"_No,_ chaton. Keep your eyes on the prize." 

“Buginette, are you suggesting that I'm not a prize?” He laid a hand to his heart, mock-wounded. “Don’t tell me you’re dating me just for my assets.”

She tilted her face up in order to look at him. The softness he saw there warmed him like sunlight, quickening his blood in his beating veins.

“Well, it’s not for your sense of humor.”

“Me-ouch."

“We’ve still got time before you have to go back." Her eyes crinkled, full of mischief. "Maybe we should find out what else you’re good for.”

Red-hot color bloomed across his cheeks, spreading to the tips of his human ears. Laughter exploded out of her, bright as bells, and she shook in his arms as she was racked by the force of it. His voice—when he found it—was sandpaper-hoarse.

“Always with the right ideas at the right time, my lady.”

"Your lady indeed," said Marinette Dupain-Cheng, already tugging him down to her lips—and that was the last that she spoke for some time.

  


* * *

  


“Paging all idiots to the front desk."

“Not a word,” said Adrien, beaming to himself as he adjusted the red-and-black scarf around his neck. “The love of my life is in love with me _back_, and nothing is going to ruin it for me, stinky kwamis included.”

Plagg—who was nestled in the collar of his shirt—craned his neck to fix him with a glare. 

“You were the one who wouldn't shower all weekend because—and kitten, I _shudder_ to repeat this—you _didn’t want to wash off the kisses until Monday._”

“What happened to being glad that we were finally together?"

His kwami’s eyes narrowed to emerald slits. 

“This is not normal. _You_ are not normal. The second your girlfriend walks in here, I’m going to tell her how annoying you’re being.”

“Plagg, please don’t pester Marinette.”

“Or what? You'll sigh on me? You'll read me more of your poetry?" 

“What poetry?" came a third voice, softly amused.

Adrien’s knee hit the wall with a clang, and he whirled, face contorted between a grin and a wince. 

It was the first time he’d seen her since Friday afternoon, when Ladybug—still masked and clad in her bespoke blazer—had returned him to the custody of his mutely horrified bodyguard. He’d texted her throughout the weekend (from his staff, because his phone was confiscated), but the sight of her in person—wearing pink denim overalls and a world-ending smile—brought a now-familiar heat to his face.

“Good morning to the love of my life,” said Marinette, crossing the room to join him at the lockers. Just as he opened his mouth to respond, she turned on one heel and shot him a sly grin. “And good morning to you, Adrien. I almost missed you standing there.”

"Mwah," said Plagg. "I missed you too."

Oh, so _that’s_ how she wanted to play it.

Adrien pivoted, all nonchalance, and started fiddling with the combination lock of his locker. “Sounds good to me. We all know that Tikki has my heart til the end of time.”

A giggle erupted from the purse at Marinette’s hip. Moments later, a tiny head emerged, and enormous blue eyes sought out Adrien's face. 

“She’s just teasing you, Adrien. She has pastries for you in her backpack.”

“You do?” he asked eagerly. In a truly supernatural feat of reflex, Marinette snatched her backpack from the tiled floor and held it tantalizingly out of reach.

“These are for my friends, not for devilishly handsome strangers.” Her grin turned wicked, curling at the corners. “Besides, if I remember correctly, I gave you several somethings already.”

“Maybe I’ll return the favor,” he shot back. “You can knit yourself a scarf to match.”

Marinette blushed, and a delighted thrill shot through him like lightning. Pressing his advantage as best he could, he stooped to bring their faces closer together. 

“What’s the matter, buginette? Can someone not take as good as they dish out?”

For two glorious seconds, she simply gaped, looking for all the world as though he’d clobbered her with a crowbar. Then her face took on the countenance of a stormfront, and her eyes lit up with a competitive gleam. 

Just as Adrien was bracing for impact, Plagg let out a yowl and dove into his shirt. Both he and Tikki vanished out of sight—Tikki into her purse, Plagg into Adrien's clothing—only moments before Alya appeared in the open doorway.

A brief silence fell over the hallway as Alya approached, narrowing her eyes at their matching red cheeks. Adrien spun towards his open locker. Marinette did the same, whipping out her phone to thumb through her texts. 

“So,” Alya began, after a minute had passed. “You’ve heard this from me already, Adrien, but I’m glad to see you safe. “

“Thanks, Alya, but I’m okay.” He kept his head bowed as he reached for a textbook. “Ladybug got me out of there as soon as Volpina appeared. She and Chat Noir had everything under control by the time she came to fetch me.”

Alya raised a delicate eyebrow.

“Took her a whole two hours to fetch you, did it?”

With a resounding thud, he dropped the textbook onto his foot. Hands clasped demurely behind her back, Alya swivelled to face Marinette.

“Actually, Mari, I was hoping to talk to _you_. Where were you during that whole mess on Friday? Because girl, it _really_ freaked me out. All of us thought it was actually you up until she tried to kill Chat on national television."

Marinette jerked to attention, mouth pulled taut in the facsimile of a smile. 

“Uh,” she said eloquently. “Well, I wasn’t—t-that is—I didn’t—”

She shot a pleading glance in his direction. Adrien—stork-legged and crimson with embarrassment—racked his wits for a suitable story.

_Imaginary boyfriend?_ he mouthed at Alya’s back. Marinette cringed, but she squared her shoulders. 

“I mean, I’ll tell you, but you have to keep it secret. My parents are already mad I went out without telling them, soo...” She dropped her voice out of eavesdropping range. “If they ask—if anyone asks—I definitely wasn’t at Parc Floral during the akuma attack. And I _definitely_ wasn’t there to meet up with Chat Noir.”

Arms full of books and binders, Adrien froze. 

“With Chat?” asked Alya, oblivious to the drama unfolding behind her. “What do you mean?”

“He was with me on Friday. At—y’know, the park. That's why he was able to recognize Volpina, because he saw the real me just a couple minutes beforehand.”

"What do you mean, he _saw_ you? Why were you sneaking around the park with Chat in the first place? He didn’t even say he was going to be there, so how did you—”

Alya stopped.

She shut her mouth.

She glanced at Adrien, then back to Marinette, as though one of them had just dropped a centipede into her soup. 

“Marinette, _please_ tell me that this is a joke."

"_What,_ Alya? You kept telling me to date!" Helplessly, Marinette flung out her arms. "I wasn’t going to say anything until I knew it was serious, but seeing as Adrien is walking around with _bug bites_, I doubt my thing even blips on the radar.”

Feeling compelled to defend his alter ego’s honor, Adrien coughed and scuffed his feet.

“It’s not that weird, is it? Having a crush on Chat? I think he seems like a really cool guy.”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d call him _cool_. He blushed like a nun when I kissed him in the park."

Adrien's mouth fell open in affront. 

“In fact,” she went on—practically _dripping_ with innocence— “I think I had better keep my stories to myself. We can’t have it said that the dashing Chat Noir has the melting point of butterscotch mousse.”

“Excuse me?" he squeaked. "He absolutely does _not_.” 

She planted a hand on her hip and smirked. “_Doesn’t_ he, Adrien? Why don’t you go back to kissing _your_ superhero and let me do what I want with mine?”

Whatever unprintable, unintelligible noises were about to squiggle free of his mouth, they were cut off by Alya inserting herself between them, as stolidly impenetrable as a concrete wall.

“_Marinette._"

“Yes, Alya? What can I do for you?”

“You and I need to talk about this, okay?” She made an unsubtle gesture in his direction. “Meet me after school so we can walk to my house. And don’t forget to text your parents, cos I’m not bailing you out when you get grounded for the billionth time.”

With one last bewildered look at both of them, she vanished out the door to the upstairs hallway.

The instant Alya had gone, Adrien whirled on Marinette and donned his best kicked-kitten pout. Utterly unrepentant, she raised her eyebrows. 

“What was that about _dishing_, minou? It’s not my fault you brought your stick to a firefight.”

“I’ll show you fire,” he muttered mutinously. "Mark my words, my lady, I _will_ get you back."

Her answering grin could have lit up a city. Clever words and silver-tongued phrases slipped from between his nerveless fingers, and in a matter of moments, he was falling through space: burning like a star, collapsing like a galaxy, as all of his defenses disintegrated to dust.

"I'm counting on it, kitty. My skylight's unlocked."

Without another word, she slung her backpack over her shoulder and quickened her pace to catch up with Alya. A moment later, she was gone from his sight, leaving only the echo of her footsteps behind. 

Tongue in knots and body buzzing—speechless, boneless, _witless_ with excitement—Adrien held his breath and followed.


End file.
